Trump and the Non-existent 'Shift Toward Anti-Interventionism' in the GOP

The myth that Trump was some kind of antiwar or anti-interventionist candidate has been surprisingly hard to dispel.

The New York Times frames Republican hawks’ enthusiasm for using force in Mexico in a strange way:

The Republican Party’s attraction to seeking a military solution to the drug problem is a reminder that the G.O.P. — despite its populist shift toward anti-interventionism in the Trump years [bold mine-DL] and the growth of a faction that opposes arming Ukraine against Russia’s invasion — still reaches for armed force to address some complex and intractable problems. Mr. Trump himself has been something of a walking contradiction when it comes to the use of force abroad, alternately wanting to pull back U.S. involvement overseas and threatening to drop bombs on enemies such as Iran.

It’s almost as if the “populist shift toward anti-interventionism in the Trump years” didn’t exist. I understand that newspaper editors prefer stories that take their readers a bit by surprise, but a party full of militarists embracing military options is exactly what you would expect to happen. The reporters working on the article want the story to be more complicated than it is. The GOP is an overwhelmingly hawkish party, and Republican presidential candidates want to use hammers to solve almost every problem that they see. Their desire to use force in Mexico is extreme and alarming, but it is consistent with an ideology that celebrates the military and sees it as a tool for all tasks.